A
small asteroid will zip close by Earth Tuesday (Oct. 12), but poses no chance
of hitting the planet ? or even entering the atmosphere, NASA has announced.

The
asteroid 2010 TD54 will fly within about 28,000 miles (45,000 km) of Earth when
it makes its closest pass at about 6:51 a.m. EDT
(1051 GMT) tomorrow morning, NASA spokesman D.C. Agle told SPACE.com. It
be passing over southeast Asia, near Singapore, at the time.

The small asteroid is about
20 feet (6 meters) wide and expected to drift silently by Earth instead of
creating a dazzling fireball in the atmosphere. The asteroid is too small to
survive all the way to the ground, even if it was aimed at Earth, scientists
said.

Asteroid Watch is a public outreach effort by NASA's near-Earth objects office
at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The group of scientists
regularly posts asteroid flyby and sighting alerts on Twitter under the name
AsteroidWatch.

Asteroid
2010 TD54 may be visible to skywatchers with moderate
telescopes, but will be hard to spot, NASA officials said. Seasoned asteroid
hunters may be the best equipped to catch a glimpse, they added.

"A moderate telescope required; it is very small," the
Asteroid Watch group wrote on Twitter.

The asteroid will fly well inside the moon's orbit of Earth, and
even pass just above some of the highest satellites, which fly in geostationary
positions about 22,370 miles (36,000 km) above Earth. For comparison, the
International Space Station flies at an altitude of about 220 miles (354 km).

When space rocks like Asteroid 2010 TD54 encounter Earth's
atmosphere, they can burn up in spectacular fire balls, but never reach the
Earth.

Bigger
asteroids about 460 feet (140 meters) wide can cause widespread damage around
their impact sites, but for global devastation much larger space rocks would
have to strike the Earth.

NASA
routinely tracks asteroids and comets that fly near Earth, using a network of
ground and space telescopes as part of its Near-Earth Object Observations
program. According to the most recent report, the program has tracked 85
percent of the largest asteroids that fly near Earth and 15 percent of
asteroids in the 460-foot class.

NASA
is also planning to tackle a new space plan ordered by President Obama to send astronauts to an
asteroid
by 2025. The mission, agency officials have said, could help scientists better
understand the composition of asteroids and develop improved methods of
deflecting them before they endanger the Earth.